Okami: Uta no Tori
by Trayne
Summary: AU Adventure, slight Naruto crossover The cruelty of winter will make even dragons cry and turn on each other. So how will a bird fare in the midst of death, and the fangs of the Wolf?


I wrote this a while back; the first part during the winter and while in heavy ninja mode, and most of the second just recently, while I'm feeling somewhat intimate. Some terms used in here apply to Naruto, so they won't be familiar to you if you don't read that wonderful manga or haven't seen the anime. Is this a one-shot? Could there be more? Well...

Who knows? I may come back and edit this little bit as I see fit. For now I just need to do something to show I haven't been completely inactive. Perhaps a waste of time on my part, but I haven't given up hope.

Um, sorry, sorry, I'll scurry off to the other stories now…

Disclaimer: Digimon goes to Toei, Naruto to Kishimoto-sensei. Tori-chan is and always shall be mine!

* * *

Okami: Uta no Tori

_It all happened so fast…_

_I can't even think of how the others will find me… Maybe they've already given up?_

_I… I think I have._

_It's so hard to think, so hard to feel._

_I fear my body has long surrendered to the cold._

_And the rest of me will be taken by death, shortly._

_But…I…_

* * *

"God-DAMMIT!" 

At his outburst, another round of bright flames shot out from Taichi. He struggled against his bonds, but Mimi held fast with her superb chakra control, her vines staying put.

"What the hell are we waiting for! She's out there all alone! We have to-"

"No, Taichi!" Sora said sternly. "You know we can't-"

"That doesn't matter!" Taichi roared, his eyes glowing orange with firelight as he glared at his peers before him. "We have to try! We have to-"

"In this storm, Taichi?" Jyo's calmer voice managed to slightly douse the flames of Taichi's rage. "At this rate, you know we'll only lose more."

Taichi became still, his eyes fading back to their normal deep brown.

Jyo's eyes softened. "I know that's not what you want," he said more quietly, then turned to Mimi. "I think you can stop now, Mimi."

"Alright." Mimi's eyes melted from bright spring green to hazel as she released the Earth-based ninjutsu she had used to restrain Taichi. She stood shakily with Jyo's assistance, and turned a sad smile towards the brunette on the floor. "Don't worry so much, Tai-kun. Mitori-chan has a lot of potential, so I'm sure she'll be fine until we're able to go find her."

"But…!" Taichi pushed himself up suddenly on one arm, but Ryo stepped forward, partially drawing his weapon.

Taichi growled, his hands balling into fists, as he knew what that silent gesture meant.

The two boys locked eyes for an agonizing moment. Everyone else knew questions were being asked, but nothing was being said.

They broke eye contact at the same time; Ryo averting his gaze to the side, and Taichi dropping his head so that his wild bangs shadowed his eyes.

A tense, painful silence ensued until the rustle of Sora's clothes was heard. She had moved forward and kneeled beside Taichi to tend to the minor, bleeding wound on the side of his head that he had inflicted upon himself while struggling against Mimi's bonds.

The worry hung in the air, and everyone breathed it just the same, absorbed it through their pores. Even so, the extent of Taichi's despair escaped them until he had begun to bash his head against the floor, threatening to hurt himself if they didn't let him go.

Ryo sighed and fully sheathed his weapon, looking out at what lay beyond the small building. Though he was as head-strong and adventurous as Taichi, he was known to have better self-control, but even that was slipping. His electric blue eyes, normally as clear and true as the sky, resembled a turbulent tempest, much like the swirling masses outside. His hand flexed in agitation over the handle of his whip.

The others in the room also weren't doing well.

Sora was now cradling Taichi's head against herself; her face was buried in his hair, most likely to help against the tears she must be fighting back herself, even as she tried to soothe his fears. Taichi leaned against her, unable to do anything else, his hands clenching his pants tightly.

Mimi and Jyo were turned towards the window that stood on the other side of the door; neither seeing what was beyond the heavily frosted pane. The passive girl was visibly shaking, not from the cold which everyone was accustomed to. Jyo, with one hand on her shoulder, tried to reassure her.

Having stayed in the shadows, no one had paid her any mind. They all had too much going through their heads, but they didn't know that what haunted them was her ghost as well. Great losses were a part of her past that she had learned to deal with in her own, quiet way, but like the others in the room, the wound of the most recent tragedy still pained her as much as it did them.

The one who had balanced Taichi's flames; tamed Ryo's wind; yet surprisingly was taken by the very element he had wielded himself. Taichi and Ryo never spoke about it, and they had not spoken to one another since that event. With the three there had been balance; with two, only conflict. And the village that had once been so proud was now still and ever mournful.

This was supposed to be common to their people, because of their place in this world, as tools of the government, but they were still young. Too young to be weapons, to young to be faced with an unfair loss such as this, but here they were, already beginning to mourn for what may happen again. It had been just like this that day; a blizzard howling about, indifferent to whatever anguish may be caused because of it…

Everyone's heads snapped up when they distinctly heard the howl among those of the blizzard.

Ryo gave a short, cynical laugh, and began to move towards the door. "Well, well, seems the bastard's at it again!"

It was then that Arisu moved forward with incomparable speed, taking hold of his arm and halting him from acting on his impulses.

His head snapped to the blonde girl. "Mikukoi…!"

Neither her pale face nor her cyan eyes gave any indication to her mood; internally, she gave a half-amused smirk at how even the ever-alert Ryo had forgotten of her presence, as most others would do. She knew, however, that she was never foremost in anyone's minds, especially not at this moment.

"Now is not the time to go hunting," Arisu said in a level, soft voice.

His eyes sparked dangerously, but Ryo made no other move, quelling the storm inside him and returning his gaze to the wintry world outside. Arisu followed his gaze, having enough of evaluating everyone else's mood but her own. In place of the pained eyes of browns, black, and blue, she tried to picture those of the blizzard – of piercing ice, cold and cunning.

* * *

"Ah…" 

"Hm, seems our little bird awakes…"

"Oh!"

Aware that feigning sleep was futile, she sat up quickly, intending to instead analyze her situation. The first problem made itself apparent as soon as she moved; having to clutch one of the fur blankets she was covered in to her chest as she realized she had been stripped of almost all of her clothing.

"Relax; they're drying by the fire."

She snapped to the one who had spoken; a boy sitting opposite of her on the cavern wall, whose features were impossible to read with the fire playing over them and rebellious blonde hair falling over his left eye.

Feeling even more naked under the strange intensity directed towards her – evident in the shockingly blue crystal of his visible eye – and already ashamed at her current state, her cheeks began to redden.

He held up his hands defensively. "Now, now, I haven't done anything like _that_. I had to take them off.

Unless you would have preferred catching your death of cold."

When he smiled, she half-expected to see a glistening fang peek through. That smile didn't reach his eyes, held no warmth, and made her suspect he was merely toying with already captured prey.

Her thin black brows drew together, and something glinted – no, not from a fang, it came from his eye.

"You might as well drop the tough act, little bird. You're in my realm now; your weapons are well out of reach. You can't do anything against me."

When he nodded his head, her deep verdant eyes followed, seeing her shuriken, kunai, and other equipment indeed out of reach. It was obvious that whoever this boy was, he was of higher skill than her - perhaps of higher rank.

She truly was powerless against him just as she had been overpowered by the extreme weather of the North, being a newcomer to it and ignorant of its dominance. And while it seemed the ice had spared her, she was now at the mercy of a stranger who gave off the aura of something feral. He looked to be her age, but already feeling weak under the gaze of just one eye, she could tell he was somehow older… more dangerous.

"You're shaking."

His abrupt statement startled her, and she even jumped. She could only stammer a reply in a tremulous, timid voice.

"I-I'm not used… to the cold yet."

"Heh." Somehow surprised that he could make a sound even remotely like a laugh, she raised her eyes that had dropped from the fire, looking at him. He had just dropped his face into one hand, another grim smile peeking out from behind his palm.

She began to fidget; he brought his head up, leisurely but with intent, brushing back his golden bangs to fully unveil both shards of ice.

"Be still."

For an instant, her head swam; she found she couldn't move; lapis lazuli dominated the fire in brilliance; a crystalline white wolf sat calmly, holding her with his gaze.

Next she was suddenly aware of her cheek being pressed against cool flesh that began to warm against her own; unabashed, the boy held her in his arms.

She immediately stiffened, and she could feel a silent laugh vibrate through his firm chest.

"Now, now. Don't want you too cold, now do we, little bird?"

Minutes seemed to drag by. She tried listening to the quiet roaring of the fire, instead finding herself focusing on the heartbeats; first hers, as it pounded loudly with nervousness, then his as she began to quiet, beating steadily but softly, as if it didn't want to at all but continued its rhythm.

She found this little sign of life heart-wrenching, especially when combined with the fact that her own beat was so close to being silenced forever. She didn't notice that her trembling had stopped, that she had become limp.

This time his voice didn't scare her, as it seemed fitting in the sad atmosphere. "It really scared you, huh?"

She nodded, raven-colored hair falling about her shoulders. "I really thought I was going to die out there. I thought I had died. But I'm here, and I should be happy, but being so close…" Her voice had broken; she felt her hair being moved off her bare shoulder and replaced by his hand, perhaps in a move that should have comforted her, but didn't.

"What did it make you realize?" he asked, voice like a snowflake; soft, a gentle kiss of cold before melting away.

"I didn't want to die. It wasn't that I had something to lose…"

"No family?"

Her head shook; her hands folded and came to rest in front of her mouth. "I have my mother. It's strange saying that, because our relationship… it just isn't right. But when I thought I would die, I realized that I felt I had nothing, not even her, that I felt like I would lose. And that made me afraid.

I shouldn't feel that way. I wanted to be able to miss her; I didn't want to feel like it didn't matter. There's still so much I haven't said to her, so much I want to ask her. I want to be there for her, want her to still be there with me, for whatever we are faced with. I wanted to feel like her daughter, not just a child. Even though something is wrong now, I know there will be a time when it would pass, and we would feel like a family again. That's why I didn't want to die, not then, not yet…

I wanted to live."

When she stopped, she felt calmer than she could remember feeling in a long time. She had finally faced a long hidden fear, finding the courage to do so only after meeting such people as Taichi and the other genin of her class, and escaping the claws of death. Then there was also this boy, this quiet, chilling boy whom she could not find herself deceiving, and felt that she might as well tell all since she had already felt bared under his gaze.

Rather than drained, she felt at ease, feeling that because she was able to say this and not feel criticized, that there was nothing wrong in how she felt.

She shifted in his arms. "I'm alright now."

He made no indication that he was ready to release her. Puzzled, she began to consider this stranger; with the initial shock of near-death now over, she could now think of why this boy had affected her so. Just who was he to render her so helpless in a matter of seconds? More rationally, she thought of what sort of spell he had used on her to allow him to get so close, and why she couldn't find the strength to push him away?

"You're enjoying this," she muttered to herself, but he heard her, and she felt him sigh.

"… You're warm," he said after a pause. "Everything is cold, dead in this place, and you're foreign here, but a welcome disturbance. You remind me a bit of someone else; warm, but not blazingly so. You're much more pleasant to feel than ice.

But you're also passive and easily tamed, unlike another I knew. And…"

He stopped, laughed softly to himself, and lowered his nose to her hair, rubbing it in the ebony locks. "Look at what you've got me saying, little bird."

She felt a twinge of disappointment. It was quite enthralling hearing this enigma of a boy talk, especially when it could reveal a bit more about him. But he seemed to have caught on to her little ploy, and stopped himself from saying anything more.

Nevertheless, she would still try. "Why do you call me 'little bird'?"

"Well, you're such a small, fragile thing in this large unforgiving world." A hand had slipped under the only thin shirt she was wearing, gliding up her bare back and over her shoulder blades, as if checking to see if she really had wings. "And yet, you seem to get closer to heaven than most of us; you can go anywhere, escape anything, if you wanted to."

Her back arched slightly, away from his touch. "I'm not so fragile."

"You sure…?" His hand began to skim slowly up and down her back; she shuddered. "You're as soft as a feather, and just as fleeting. The smallest of breezes could lift you away… and, I wonder, how much would it take to make you break?

I don't think it would take too much, if you apply the right kind of pressure."

"And what about you?"

He said nothing in reply; had she finally caught him off guard?

"What did it take to make you break? To make you isolate yourself from others?"

To show she wasn't so feeble – especially now with her new-found strength – she dared to ease away from him a little and raise her head up. He returned her gaze steadily, his expression blank. In another daring move, she raised a hand up and brushed aside his bangs.

This time he used no genjutsu to entrap her. Still she tried to probe through those windows of ice, see pass the layers of frost. Though the cold bit at her, for one fleeting instant she caught a glimpse of the sun in the desolate winter sky; one, glimmering hope.

"You… you don't like being alone. Is that why you saved me? Did you want to allow me to be this close? When was the last time you felt the warmth of another?

You could spare yourself from this and come live in the village. They have no reason to turn you back. I've only been here a short while, but I've found the ninja of this village much more accepting than those of the main countries. Especially the others of my class, they'd love to know you!

So, why not leave this cold place, and return with me?"

Subconsciously, her hand had slipped down so that her fingers were grazing his cheek. The other hand, having long forgotten about holding the blanket up, lay loosely on his chest. He tilted his head to the left, his bangs slipping away from his left eye.

"Quite a tempting song the little bird sings," he murmured. He lifted the hand not resting on her back to her chin, lifting her face closer to his; the other hand began to press her body closer to his.

His eyes closed briefly, and then reopened, focusing directly on hers; bright sapphire to deep emerald.

"Sleep."

Another flash; a brilliant blue; a wolf of snow; the black world of sleep…

* * *

Looking back, that day had been a blur afterwards. Nothing was completely clear after sleep took her again. 

She vaguely remember racing through the blinding snow, astride a magnificent beast and clutching fur colored like winter.

She knew she was in a dark room, piercing blue staring down at her.

It was when Ryo had burst in that she realized she was back in her own home, in her own room, laid in her futon. Ryo had given her a brief, relieved glance, and then raced out through the open shoji window. Taichi informed her later that the wild boy was chasing after what had left the tell-tale wolf tracks coming from her room, certain it was the hated beast that had captured her.

She was enveloped in an embrace of gentle strength and soft kimono fabric, and when she heard the sobs, she knew that this was her mother. Unable to communicate her true feelings in any other way, she returned the embrace and cried quietly with her.

Taichi, Sora, Arisu, Jyo, and the other genin of her class – Mimi and Koushiro, soon came in after. Sometime later, when her mother was able to pull away from her and deliver the news of her condition with some of the other younger ninja, she was left with only Taichi and Sora.

They had asked, of course, where she had been, as she appeared for the most part unharmed.

She chose not to tell them the entire tale – as the moment seemed surreal at the moment and even she was having a hard time believing what had happened – but she was sure to mention being in the company of a blonde blue with intense crystal blue eyes.

At that moment Sora had wailed, and clung to Taichi, burying her face in his clothes. The brunette wrapped one arm around her, and Mitori immediately apologized, thinking she had said something wrong.

"It's… it's not that," Taichi said carefully, rubbing Sora's back with one hand but taking Mitori's with the other, looking straight at her. "That… that was Yamato. It must have been."

"Then we have to go back for him!"

"No!"

His sharp reply startled her, but Taichi immediately softened, squeezing her hand apologetically. "It's not so simple. You see, a year ago, Yamato and his father were taken by the Okami that haunts these lands. With you, I guess… He must still be looking out for all of us, in his own, usual way."

Having quieted down a few moments ago, Sora's broken voice stated what Taichi was saying with three simple words.

"Yamato is dead."


End file.
